


Night Visions - a little fic for Hallowe'en

by Maels (queen_ypolita)



Category: Coronation Street
Genre: 1000-3000 words, Halloween, M/M, Nightmares, spookiness, suggestions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-10-31
Updated: 2004-10-31
Packaged: 2017-10-04 13:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_ypolita/pseuds/Maels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Hallowe'en and Karl finds his sleep interrupted by strange visions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Visions - a little fic for Hallowe'en

Karl had had no trouble going to sleep that night; the moment he had put his head on his pillow his waking dreams about the previous - very much sleepless - night had imperceptibly turned into actual dreams. Todd was all over them. No wonder really, it had taken a lot of self-control today at work to keep his thoughts away from Todd and everything that had happened last night.

There was no place in the dreams for the uncertainty of not knowing how Todd felt about it afterwards, in the morning, how Todd feels about it now, whether or not it will ever happen again.

* * *

He opened his eyes with a start. At first he didn't understand why he had woken up so suddenly – things with Todd were just getting very interesting, he was annoyed to be snatched away from it by nothing. He closed his eyes, prepared to go back to sleep, not to keep Todd waiting, but something caught his eye. He looked around, not really expecting to see anything. Then he saw it, saw them. He blinked. And blinked again, thinking it couldn't be.

There were two women standing in the middle of his room, looking at him. What immediately caught his eye was their hair – shaggy and standing out, full of dead leaves. They were very pale and wearing what looked like grey gowns made of some rough-looking material. They looked ageless at first, after a couple of minutes' stunned study Karl thought that one of them, the taller, was probably older. Once he had noticed this he began to see other differences between them. The taller woman had a rather horsy face whereas the shorted woman didn't seem to have any chin. Both women seemed expressionless, like they were wearing masks, although Karl could see that they didn't, but their faces were strangely threatening.

Karl felt shivering just looking at them and instinctively pulled his duvet up closer to his chest. He didn't think he could have been able to speak even if he had had anything to say. Who were the women? What on the earth were they doing in his bedroom in the middle of the night? He blinked again. The women were still there. They didn't move at all, but dead leaves from their hair kept falling to the floor.

Suddenly he felt constricted his throat, like he was being strangled, yet the women hadn't moved and he saw nothing that could have caused it. He struggled against the invisible force which got tighter and tighter every second, he couldn't breathe…

* * *

He opened his eyes with a start and felt his neck. It was sore and he flinched from his own touch. But it had been a dream, just a dream, there was no sign of the two women and the dead leaves had disappeared from the floor. He got up to get a drink of water. Walking across the room on his way back to bed, he passed the mirror and stopped to study his neck carefully but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. The dream was slipping away; he was beginning to think he had only imagined having that dream. It was far easier to imagine Todd's lips nuzzling his neck… He sighed. He wished Todd was here again. But he knew Todd couldn't. The thought gave him a vision of Todd sleeping peacefully in his own bed, next to Sarah, his arm put protectively round her, the previous night gladly forgotten for good.

He shook the vision away, angry to himself and got back under his duvet. He conjured his memories from last night, of Todd's warm body against his, and started going through every little touch… The actual memories weaved themselves into his dreams and he never knew at what point he fell asleep.

* * *

He turned on to his back and blinked. Something was not right. Then he saw it and gasped. What was Sarah doing in his bedroom in the middle of the night? Someone moved and he realised she had Bethany with her, pretty as a little angel, wearing a pink dress and smiling her radiant little girl's smile. Looking at her made Karl wonder what it would be like to have children… but the line of thought evaporated when Sarah moved. It was only then he realised she was barefoot wearing a nondescript hospital smock which was hanging loosely about her. She noticed him looking at her and resolutely pushed her hair away from her face. Her hand left a dark patch on her blond hair. At first he didn't know what it was, then he realised her hands were bloody. He couldn't understand where the blood had come from.

She smiled, a sick smile of triumph which lit her too pale waxlike face. There was something about her teeth that looked different, Karl thought, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. She took Bethany by the hand and assumed a wounded expression with an ease that surprised Karl – it had to be an everyday occurrence.

Suddenly his observations struck him as slightly funny, in the circumstances, and he laughed out loud.

'I thought you'd be laughing now and I was right, wasn't I?' Sarah said. Her voice was barely more than a whisper and had a chilly, steely edge to it, nothing like he had heard from her before.

'You snared my fella, bedded him like you must have bedded a long string of nameless faceless insignificants. You killed my baby. Are you happy now?'

'But I thought… it was just a scare, you're fine now…' Karl croaked, feeling the strangling feeling again.

'Whatever. Don't pretend that you care, I know it's not your style. You have killed my baby, it just didn't happen the day before yesterday. But it will. You snared my fella from me, from us. And I'm going to make you pay for it…'

She smiled, a horrible sickly smile that bared her teeth properly. This time Karl knew what it was that had caught his attention last time.

'You know what's gonna happen, don't you? Are you scared? Fair enough, it will be different from last night, but you enjoyed Todd nibbling your neck, didn't you? Do you think it's revolting when it's going to be me?'

Karl pulled his duvet protectively around him. He was shivering. He tried desperately to come up with something to say, something to make her see sense, anything… but deep down he knew it wouldn't make any difference. There was no way out of this for him. Then his eyes fell on Bethany, smiling to herself, smiling her sweet little girl's smile, engrossed with something only she could see and hear, apparently unconcerned of her mother's odd behaviour and bloody hands.

'Are you… in front of her? Why did you bring her by the way?' It was his last desperate attempt to appeal to her better qualities. As soon as he said it he knew it was pointless. Sarah no longer had anything human in her.

'I brought her along because I thought you might get some… pleasure out of her… afterwards.' She guided the little girl away from herself while she took a few steps towards him. She leant over him, he tried to back away but there was no room, no way to go. He felt the smell of blood in her breath and flinched when the icy-cold teeth met his skin. Then he couldn't think anymore and he screamed.

* * *

A scream woke him up; it took him a while to realise that it had been his own scream. He felt freezing and pulled his duvet more tightly around himself. Why had he screamed like that? Those teeth, those fangs on his neck, it had felt so real… He tried to put the dream out of his mind. The shivering slowly subsided and he drifted into dreamless sleep.

* * *

He was tracing invisible patterns on Todd's chest, listening to his steady breathing and marvelling at having him here. He could hear the contentment in Todd's voice when he said something every now and then.

Then a shadow fell on the bed. He looked up and saw Martin, dressed in green theatre scrubs. They didn't suit him at all, just made him look sickly green all over. There was a glint of something in his hand. Karl glances at Todd on his side and realised it had been a dream; Todd had never been there tonight. He had been alone.

Martin smiled savagely, clearly enjoying the moment.

'Satisfied, are you now? Got what you wanted?'

'Maybe I did,' Karl said. He wasn't going to take any grief from Martin. Not when he interrupted like this. 'Why are you here? Shouldn't you be haunting Todd? He's the one who's supposed to marry your daughter, not me.'

'I will. I just came to tell you… to show you what I have in mind for him. It would be too kind, too gentle to do it to him unawares… he'll appreciate it more when he sees the example on you.'

'So what did you have in mind?' Karl asked after a moment's heavy silence.

'I quite fancied breaking your kneecaps but then I thought it was just blunt and brutish…'

Martin took a couple of steps towards the bed. Karl could now see what was in his hand, a surgical knife. Martin pulled away his duvet although Karl tried to hold on to it.

'Naturally, my second thought was to relieve you of certain body parts…' Martin's glance dropped at his crotch. Karl flinched when the cold steel blade met the skin on his thigh. '… but then I reckoned it would be too cruel, too messy. Instead, I thought I would trace the lines of your affection on him following your fingertips on his skin… but instead of fingers I would be using this little beauty. I won't hurt… and I'm sure you can see the beauty of the end result. Like a tattoo. Trendy and all.'

Martin grinned sickly. Karl felt petrified; before he had any time to react the pressure on the knife increased and the sharp blade sank into his flesh easily. At first it didn't hurt although he felt it, then Martin moved the knife, and, as he had promised, the knife traced some previously invisible patterns on the skin of his thigh, patterns that rapidly reddened. It wasn't the blood or the pain or the knife pretending to trace Todd's touch on his skin that felt the worst, it was the violation of their intimacy. He raised his hand and hit Martin, only to have the blade taking a sharp turn upwards and he was too frightened to move…

* * *

Karl got up in the morning feeling sore and tired; it was as if sleep hadn't provided any rest for him. He contemplated about breakfast but felt like throwing up at the thought. There was something beside his bed and he stooped to pick it up. A dead leaf, he couldn't understand where it had come from. There was something else next to where the leaf had been. He got down to see better… it looked like a drop of blood. He had never been so puzzled in his life.

* * *

He had a tough day at work, he was too tired and all his patients seemed more demanding, their friends and families more stubborn and stupid and his colleagues more impatient than usual. He had no time to think about Todd until Todd came to find him later that day.

That was the first time he smiled that day.

'Hi.'

'Hi.'

There was a pause and Karl felt down again. For a moment, he was convinced that Todd had sought him out to say he regretted it had ever happened.

'I…,' Todd began. 'I…'

'What Todd?' Karl said more curtly than he had intended. 'Are you trying to say you regret it and can we just forget it?'

'No,' Todd said, surprisingly firmly to Karl's ears. 'I'm trying to ask you when can I see you again?'

'Oh,' Karl said, feeling suddenly overjoyed.

'What are you doing tonight?' Todd asked.

'Working, I'm covering for Anne for a couple of hours.'

'Oh,' Todd said. 'Well I'd better go home soon anyway.'

'I'm not working until noon tomorrow though. What about you?'

'Me neither.'

'Great, come over to mine then.'

Todd nodded and glanced at his watch.

'I should be going now,' he said. Then he hesitated, looked around, saw no one and put his hand on Karl's cheek and kissed him lightly on the lips. 'See you tomorrow.'

Karl felt elated when he was looking at Todd's retreating back but then he thought he saw a shadow of something at the end of the corridor – a group formed by two figures on the right, a man in the middle and a girl and a child on the left and he shivered, not knowing why.

_The end._


End file.
